Amory Lovins: Rocky Mountain Institute

Going to talk about climate change, energy, and the spread of nuclear weapons.

“To be truly radical is to make hope possible, not despair convincing.” — Raymond Williams

“Everything works out alright in the end, if it’s not going right then it’s not the end yet.” — ?

Some of the largest companies in the world — IBM, GE, BP, Dow — have been saving huge amounts of money by accelerating their investment in energy efficiency. If we could save 3-4% a year in energy per $GDP we’d stabilize the climate, and it’s profitable! Focus on oil and electricity which are responsible for 4/5ths of the carbon emission in our country.

OilEndGame.com is how to get the US completely off oil by 2040. In the 8 years between 77 and 85 economy grew by 27% and oil consumption went down 15%. Each day your car uses 100x your car’s weight in ancient plants into your car. 87% of the fuel you use is wasted, 6% is used to heat the tires and the road, 0.3% of the energy is actually moving the driver. Toyota went out a 1/X concept car, it has the same interior area of the Prius but with 1/2 the fuel use and 1/3 the weight.

It took the auto industries 6 months to switch from making cars to making the stuff that won the war. Boeing was in deep trouble 11 years ago and their response was the Dreamliner, they’re sold out into 2018, just took 1000th order. It’s made half out of fiber. Rocky Mountain Institute is all about institutional acupuncture. The Pentagon is now the leader in the US government in getting the US not dependent on oil.

Think of it like a Saudi Arabia just found under Detroit when we switch cars to these new materials, and it’s 12x more crash-resistant to steel. It was change the managers or their minds, whichever comes first. 70% of our electricity goes to buildings, 30% to energy. Houses comfortable at 115 degrees outside due to super-insulation, better comfort, normal construction costs. Integrative design yielding multiple benefits from single expenditures, making big savings cheaper. Now designing new chip fabs, data centers, mines. Hatching a plot for the non-violent overthrow of bad engineering.

There is not a nuclear revival because there’s no investors. It saves carbon but much slower and more expensive than efficiency and micropower. If we set a good example in our own energy policy of reducing or eliminating nuclear we could take away the cover of proliferation that countries like Iran can use to start to develop and acquire the ingredients for nuclear bombs. Micropower is beating central plants wherever it’s allowed to compete. Profitable solutions exist for a richer, fairer, cooler, safer world, allow or require all ways to save energy to compete at fair prices regardless of their type, location, or size.